Britain: A Cautionary Tale for America

Post by tonyedgecombe » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #35

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #20

I generally agree with the article but there are a couple of issues. >France has roughly the same population as the U.K., but almost 50 percent more homes. France also has four times the land area compared to the UK. >The Economist ties Britain’s energy scarcity to its overly rapid and haphazard push for decarbonization; having banned coal, and with natural gas now extremely expensive due to the Ukraine war, the UK h…

> France also has four times the land area compared to the UK. This is not by itself of great importance. There's several different meanings of "built on", but even with the most expansive definition for this purpose, the UK could double how much is "built on" at a cost of around a tenth of what isn't: https://fullfact.org/economy/has-92-country-not-been-built/ There's other reasons to say "perhaps not a good idea" t…

That land use has to compete with other uses such as agriculture, leisure and wildlife so the smaller available area is important if you want to make that sort of comparison.

Post by ben_w » Wed, Jul 22, 2026, 2:11 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #41

ben_w wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> France also has four times the land area compared to the UK. This is not by itself of great importance. There's several different meanings of "built on", but even with the most expansive definition for this purpose, the UK could double how much is "built on" at a cost of around a tenth of what isn't: https://fullfact.org/economy/has-92-country-not-been-built/ There's other reasons to say "perhaps not a good idea" t…

That land use has to compete with other uses such as agriculture, leisure and wildlife so the smaller available area is important if you want to make that sort of comparison.

Everything has to compete with everything, but:

(1) agriculture is both the biggest user and not done in a way that comes even close to maximising land efficiency; nor is there any reason it should, given there's not much pressure on agricultural land and the UK has easy access to cheap food imports.

(Even if there was pressure on farmland due to a loss of trade, it would be access to fertiliser that would cause more long-term issues than the land itself; phosphorus shortages would reduce carrying capacity in the range of 9-39 million depending who I ask).

(2) even with the UK's right to roam legislation, leisure use of most land is close to a rounding error. I mean, think about it for a moment: unless you live somewhere like Cambridge where the cows roam in the middle of the city, how often do you go to the middle of a cow pasture for a picnic? Ever tried taking a shortcut through a field of sunflowers (I did as a teenager, I don't recommend it)?

That said, on (2), UK land dedicated specifically to golf courses is close to (a little smaller than) UK land dedicated to housing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41901297

Re: Britain: A Cautionary Tale for America

Re: Britain: A Cautionary Tale for America